Now the things that I would say are the least relevant are your being autistic and lack of experience. First and foremost, I think people overestimate the impact of “experience”. There are benefits to dating experience in as much as you know yourself and your patterns in relationships, you have a handle on what you want and you’re a little more secure in the bumps and potholes that crop up in every relationship.

Someone who has only ever dated their high-school sweetheart and were married for 30 years doesn’t have a “lot of dating experience”, but is doing just fine

Now, there may be people who might not want to date you because that lack of experience may mean that you aren’t sure of what you want out of a relationship, or who may worry that this will mean that you’ve not had all of the ‘experiences’ that you wanted (that is: banging lots of different people). But those are going to be folks who are ultimately just not compatible with you. They want different things than what you offer; that doesn’t imply a lack of worth or value on your part, it just means that you two don’t mesh and that’s fine. You’re both better off finding the people who are right for you.

Similarly, someone who thinks you’re weird or defective because you’re an older virgin is someone who’s showing their whole ass. That’s very much a “them” problem, not a “you” problem, because those are emphatically people you don’t want to date. The last person that anyone should want to date is someone who’s so lacking in compassion or understanding that they’d mock someone for having not done something yet. If you meet someone who is somehow bothered by the fact that you’re a virgin, then all that’s happened is that you’ve filtered an asshole out of your dating pool.

But having lots of dating experience doesn’t directly translate to “is good at dating”, any more than “has had lots of sexual partners” directly translates to “is good at sex”

But what about being autistic? Well… what about it? Yes, it can be a challenge, I’m not going to lie. But there’s a difference between being a challenge and being a disqualifier. After all, autistic people date, fuck, marry, have kids and generally do all the things neurotypical people do and have since homo sapiens branched off the primate family tree.

The key here is going to be understanding yourself, where you may struggle and how to work with it. If you have a hard time gauging social situations or flirting, then what you’ll need to do is learn to be comfortable asking for what you need. Don’t think of this as a defect; think of this as giving people the “how to win with me” guide. If you need someone to be blunt about being attracted to you, then say that. If you need clarification or to make sure you’re understanding things correctly, ask. Can this be awkward at times? Sure… but you know what’s really svenska brud awkward? Rolling the dice when you’re not sure and having it come up snake-eyes. Asking and making sure you and your date are on the same page is far less awkward and, frankly, is often pretty refreshing. The idea of being willing to say “hey, I want to make sure I’m reading this correctly” or being up front is going to be like a cool washcloth on a sunburn compared to the games that some folks play. Letting people know where you stand and where they stand with you is going to be like a super power, especially for folks who are used to always feeling vaguely off-balance about what’s going on.